Modern Romance March 2019 5-8

‘This has to stop, Flora!’ she told herself as she stalked across to retrieve it.

For some reason Flora found herself reluctant to put a crease in the pristine bed linen so, leaving one foot on the floor, she pushed her other knee through the folds of the dress and put it on the bed before she stretched out to reach the brush.

She was in this position when Ivo walked into the room.

What he had intended when he walked in, he’d never know because the moment he saw her there, the provocative image of her rear, the smooth curve of her bare thigh, the cloud of copper curls, he didn’t fight it. It was a done deal.

It was with relief that he embraced it, actually ran full tilt at it. He wanted the mindless oblivion of sex, and that was all it was.

Wanting her.

She didn’t see him. She saw his reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall and immediately lost her balance and pitched forward to land in a sprawled heap on the bed.

With a grunt of dismay she fought to pull the dress over her legs as she twisted over onto her back. Levering herself semi upright on her elbows, she looked across the room to where he stood. A combination of shock and excitement slithered through her, the way he was standing, the way he was breathing... She could feel the tension that was written in his face and in the tense muscles on his powerful body; the sense of danger that she’d always been conscious of in him was there but there was nothing potential about it, it was raw and real.

There was a moment of total silence as their eyes clashed, and connected, and then he was striding across the room, making her think of some sort of ancient Roman warrior.

He stood for a moment beside the bed, not saying a word. She looked at him, his image filtered through the skeins of hair that had drifted across her face, until he bent forward.

‘I want to see you.’

The contact of his cool brown fingers on her hot skin as he brushed back the hair from her face was like a lightning strike. Every muscle in her body tensed, electrical shocks zigzagging through her.

‘That’s better,’ he breathed, drinking in the delicate features turned up to him.

His voice seemed to be coming from a long way off, but it wasn’t because she could feel his breath warm on her cheek as he pressed the heel of his hand against the centre of her chest and pushed her backwards onto the bed.

It felt to Flora as though she were in slow motion. Everything had slowed, even her heart; each fresh beat of blood around her body felt like a drumbeat in her temples. She was more conscious of her own body than she ever had been, conscious of everything from the heat pooled between her legs to the fine downy hairs that stood on her arms.

Arm over arm, he dragged himself up the bed until his face was level with hers. With his body suspended over her she felt cut off from everything but this man, this man who released all these wild, raw, primal feelings inside her.

She squeezed her eyes shut but the feeling didn’t go away.

‘I don’t feel like me,’ she whispered.

He kissed her paper-thin, blue-veined eyelids.

‘I didn’t mean for this to happen,’ he rasped.

If you didn’t want anything to happen, why walk into the room, Ivo? No, this is exactly what you wanted to happen, what you have wanted to happen from the first moment you set eyes on her.

‘I want you.’

The throaty purr of his words sent a primitive thrill through her body.

Her blue eyes blinked open; the primal glow in his dark eyes sent her insides melting. Her breath came harder and she could feel his breath hot on her face. Though they were not touching she could feel the quiver of tension in his lean body.

The leashed power, his sheer maleness, filled her with a longing she had no name for. Every cell of her body ached for him. She had never felt anything like this in her life.

When Callum had wanted to wait, he said because he respected her, she hadn’t pushed it. She hadn’t questioned it, because there had been a small part of her that had been relieved. She certainly hadn’t felt as though she’d die if she didn’t give herself to Callum. There had been no yearning, no desire to surrender totally to the hunger roaring inside her, to ease a deep, aching inner loneliness she hadn’t even known was there until now.

She felt frightened and excited, the only reason she held back the burden of her embarrassing inexperience. Should she tell him? It was the possibility that he might reject her that tipped the balance. She couldn’t risk that. She needed this to happen too much.

‘I want you too,’ she whispered, as, framing his face with her hands, she kept her eyes open as she kissed him.

For a moment he did nothing as her lips moved across his, then she felt a groan vibrate deep in his chest and he kissed her back with a frantic hunger, a driving desperation, that forced the air from her lungs and drew frantic little moans from her own throat.

He slid down beside her and, one hand hooked behind her head, he slid his free hand down over the curve of her body and pulled her hard against him to face him. He stopped kissing her long enough to tangle his fingers in her hair, to pull her face away so that he could look at her. She just stared at him raptly as he swept away the strands of hair from her face.

She touched his face, smoothing her fingers over the stubble on his cheek and jaw, fascinated by the strength, the beauty, of the angles and hollows.

Her throat ached as she looked at him. ‘You’re beautiful.’

His jaw quivered in reaction to her awed whisper. This might be just sex but he needed it—her—as much as he needed the oxygen he was dragging into his lungs. He had never experienced a passion as powerful and as all-consuming as the one that drove him now.

The whispered touch of his breath on the skin of her face before he kissed her was a delicious torture and she was so ready when he did cover her parted lips with his own that she whimpered with relief, the sound lost in his mouth.

Still kissing her, his mouth moving in a series of open-mouthed, warm kisses down the graceful column of her neck, he slid his hands under the dress she wore, easing the straps off her shoulders and exposing the angles of her collarbones and the upper slope of her breasts. Her skin had an alabaster glow, the clarity enhanced somehow by the sprinkling of freckles.

Desire roared inside him like an inferno as he held her passion-glazed eyes and then suddenly, expertly, he pulled them both to their feet so that he could reach around her to ease the zip of her dress undone. He watched hungrily as the garment slid to the floor, leaving her standing in just her underwear. She shivered as the cool air hit her hot skin...and then shivered again when his hooded glance dropped to her chest. Her nerve endings reacted to the sensuous sweep of his hooded eyes as it would a touch.

‘You’re beautiful.’ He reached round behind her, unclasping her strapless bra, and watched appreciatively as her breasts were fully exposed to him.

He tilted her back towards the bed and laid her down. His hands resting either side of her shoulders, his body was suspended above her, not touching... She wanted to touch him.

Did she say so? She had no idea, but he suddenly kissed her hard and levered himself off her and stood by the bed.

Her dismay switched to relief as he began to tear off his clothes.

Lying there, her only covering a tiny pair of pants, her breasts lifting and falling in time with her short, shallow inhalations, she watched him kick himself free of trousers and fight his way out of his shirt. The intoxicating wildness pumping through her bloodstream made her feel light-headed, reckless, unlike herself. She was literally paralysed with lust and longing. It infiltrated every cell of her body, every inch of her skin.

She ached for him in a way she hadn’t known existed.

He paused for a moment by the bed, giving her greedy eyes the opportunity to gloat over his streamlined perfect body, every muscle beautifully defined under skin that glowed gold.

One knee on the bed, he leaned over and ran his fingers under the waistband of her knickers, sliding them slowly down over her smooth thighs.

The first skin-to-skin contact made her gasp then sigh as he kissed her, his tongue slipping deep between her parted lips.

She grabbed his head to deepen the pressure of her tongue meeting his.

The soft keening moan of protests when his head lifted dissolved into a deep moan as he cupped one breast in his big hand, and, drawing a thumb up to the aroused rosy peak, he covered it with his mouth. By the time he moved to apply similar treatment to the other breast, she was writhing. The only thing stopping her floating away was his hand on her hip.

‘Look at me, cara,’ he slurred thickly.

His searing stare held her blue eyes tight as his hand slid between her legs.

‘You feel ready for me,’ he said, stroking her.

‘I feel on fire,’ she rasped. ‘This is too...too...much!’ Her eyelashes fluttered against her cheek as he eased a finger into her.

‘So tight,’ he murmured against her ear. ‘Incredible.’

She moved restlessly, pressing against his hand, not realising what else he was doing until he curled her fingers around him.

A choking sound of shock vibrated in her throat.

‘That’s how much I want... I need you. I want to be inside you, cara.’ He could not remember wanting a woman this much in his life. It felt like a fever roaring in his blood, driving him to the act of possession. Teeth clenched, he fought the need, wanting her to need this as much as he did. His skin was slicked with sweat by the effort of staying in control.

No woman had ever tested his control this much.

The dark, driven need in his face increased her excitement. Her skin was on fire...she was burning up with need from the inside out. ‘I need you too,’ she gasped faintly.

As he rolled her beneath him she arched up into him. The touch of his body against the curls at the apex of her legs brought her eyes wide open and on a collision course with his hot, hungry stare.

‘Please,’ she said simply.

She felt the deep, animal groan building in the vault of his chest and it emerged at the same moment he slid into her.

She jerked, gasped and wrapped her legs around him. Eyes tight, focused on each advance and retreat, each thrust taking her deeper into herself. She focused on the places he was touching that had never been touched, the muscles that clenched by instinct, building the pressure, the pleasure, the nerves that were singing, the tension that was building and building.

She forgot where she ended and he began and it felt as if she couldn’t bear any more, and then she saw explosions behind her closed eyelids, bursts of light as the heat and pleasure rocked through her body, as the pleasure centre in her brain went into overload.

The floating back to earth was gentle, as was his kiss before he rolled off her. They lay there, side by side on their backs, fingertips touching as their sweat-slick bodies cooled.

‘So.’ He propped himself on one elbow and looked down at her deliciously flushed face, remembering the look of concentration on her face as the heat had built inside her. His body stirred lazily, and then not so lazily as his glance slid a little lower. The sheet ended just below her coral-tipped, perfect breasts; they quivered as she covered her face with both hands.

The lazy element vanished at the quivering. His hunger for her had flared into full, hot life.

‘Look at me, Flora.’

She dropped her hands and did. It would always be a pleasure to look at him, but right now it was a struggle to meet his gaze.

‘I suppose you’re talking about the virgin stuff.’

‘You suppose right...’ He adjusted a pillow and put it behind his head. ‘I was under the impression that you’d had a love affair, were engaged.’ He’d certainly not imagined there had been only one man in her life, so the discovery that he was her first lover had been one of the biggest shocks of his life.

He looked down and found she was looking up at him quizzically. ‘Do you mind?’

Mind?

On one level it was possibly the most erotic thing in the world to know you were a woman’s first lover...maybe modern man was a myth?

He swallowed. It fascinated him that this seemed a bigger thing for him than her. ‘A heads-up might have been an idea. It’s not usual to be a virgin at your age unless you have just come out of a nunnery.’

‘Or you had a Callum in your life.’ She sighed, with an eye roll and a supple feline stretch that sent a fresh slug of lust through his sated body.

She made him greedy.

‘Callum?’

He’d never liked that name.

‘All the girls at my school had a crush on Callum. He was seven years ahead of me, so he left as I arrived at high school. But his dad was our postman and his mum worked in a chemist in Portree. You’ll ken that Skye isn’t such a big place.’

‘I ken.’

‘Are you mocking me?’

He held up his hands in mock horror and promised solemnly, ‘I wouldn’t dare.’ It flickered through his head that sleeping with a virgin wasn’t the only first for him today; he’d never enjoyed, and, yes, he was enjoying, a post-coital conversation quite like this before.

Actually, his experience of post-coital conversations was pretty limited. His lifestyle was not about lingering, more perpetual motion. Lingering for him generally involved checking his emails.

‘Anyway, I had a massive crush on him.’

At this artless confidence Ivo felt some of the pleasure of the moment slip away.

‘We all did. I was in my second year at uni when I bumped into him, and, well, a month later we were engaged.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I know it sounds crazy. And it was. It turns out we expected very different things from marriage.’ Callum wanted kids and she couldn’t give him them.

Ivo caught her hand and nudged the diamond on her finger with his own. ‘We were engaged in one day.’

She pulled her hand away and bent so that he couldn’t see her face as she twisted the diamond around on her finger. ‘That’s not the same. This—’ her clear blue gaze lifted to him ‘—is a...not a real...not real at all,’ she finished awkwardly.

What had just happened felt very real. It felt very right.

‘So, we just had imaginary sex.’

She flashed him a look. ‘You know what I mean.’

He knew more than she realised. Reading between the lines it was pretty obvious that she’d told this Callum guy she couldn’t have kids and he’d said, thanks but, no, thanks!

The bastard, he thought viciously.

‘Well anyhow he...’ She hesitated, after the Callum fiasco she had told herself that in the future she would tell any potential partner upfront that she couldn’t have children. She hadn’t quite worked out the timing yet, should it be on the first date, third, before you’d got to like him?

But she reminded herself before self-pity kicked in that timing was not an issue here. Ivo wasn’t a potential partner, he was her lover. Her marvellous, incredible lover, but this was just sex, at least for him.

She felt a sudden spurt of panic and she didn’t want to go where that acknowledgement was leading.

‘Dumped me.’

Ivo’s jaw began to ache as he watched her produce a smile that invited him to share the joke. Ivo did not feel in a joking mood, he recognised there was no reason for her to confide in him, he was the last person in the world to advocate trust, which begged the question, why? Though for a while there he had been holding his breath willing her to.

‘I suppose it turned me off the whole dating thing, and since then I’ve been too busy to do anything about it.’

‘So why didn’t your mad, passionate love affair involve sex?’

‘Other than the obvious truth I know now, that he just wasn’t that into me? I think Callum is one of those men who think there are two sorts of women: the ones you sleep with and the ones you marry and then cheat on.’

‘Charming guy.’

‘I have terrible taste in men,’ she agreed, snuggling into his side. No longer sweat-slicked, his cooled skin had a satiny texture that fascinated her, as did the movement of fine muscles just below the silky surface. Everything about him fascinated her to a point that she would previously have called obsession.

‘Thank you.’

‘Oh, it’s fine. I’m not looking for a keeper and that was... Actually, you were totally marvellous.’ It wasn’t as if she was telling him something he didn’t already know.

‘You just insulted me and buffed my ego in one sentence. That takes skill.’

‘So do you.’

At the last moment she lost her nerve and lowered her gaze.

‘I am quite happy to pass my skills on.’

Her head lifted. ‘Yes, please.’

CHAPTER TEN

IVO FOLLOWED RAMON out of the room. Flora had already vanished into the bedroom to change, ignoring his assurance that the jeans and silk shirt she was wearing were fine for breakfast with his grandfather.

‘So, breakfast? I was under the impression that we were coming to dinner.’

Ramon tipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘Yes, your grandfather informed me of this last night and asked me to arrange matters, but—’

‘But...?’ Ivo prompted.

‘This morning he... He had forgotten.’

‘Does this happen often?’

‘More than it did,’ said the other man, unhappily.

‘What else have you noticed?’ Ivo gave a brooding frown. He would respect his grandfather’s wishes but it was inevitable that people would start noticing.

‘Well, some mood swings—he can be quite...irritable.’

‘Not exactly unusual.’

‘Indeed, but, well, he can get ideas. Take against people.’

‘Such as?’

‘This is different. It is...’

‘Go on, say it.’

‘I am not a medical man, but it’s more like paranoia. There was a new staff member, young, really very promising, and your grandfather decided that he had stolen his watch. He became quite abusive and accused the lad of being part of a conspiracy. The watch was in his dressing room where he always keeps it.’

‘You smoothed things over?’

Ramon nodded.

Ivo, his expression sombre, heaved a sigh. ‘I’m grateful and I’m sorry. This is not your job. I’ll speak to the doctors, ask about extra staff. More qualified staff.’

A look of visible relief passed across the other man’s face. ‘That seems like an excellent idea, sir—and, sir, I suggested breakfast because that’s a good time for him usually.’’

Madre di Dio, things really were that bad, and they would only get worse.

His grandfather would suffer, but for how long the doctors had been frustratingly vague.

And he could do nothing.

Except keep his grandfather’s secret.

Ramon cleared his throat delicately and nodded past Ivo, looking at the half-closed door. ‘May I ask, does Ms Henderson...?’

‘No, not yet.’

Would it be the right thing to do in this situation?

The question in his head wasn’t what was the right thing to do. Or even was there a right thing...he left moral philosophy for the better qualified.

If she knew the truth, what would her reaction be?

One thing was for certain: it wouldn’t be a selfish one. If he’d learnt anything about the woman who had shown more passion in his bed than any other lover he’d had, it was that she was a born giver. She had to have arrived in the world with a note saying ‘use me’ in her chubby little hand.

And he had and furthermore he had enjoyed it. She was right, she did have terrible taste in men but he wasn’t about to kick her out of his bed.

What a saint, admired the ironic voice in his head.

All right, he was no saint, but he was not this Callum guy who, he suspected, she might still have feelings for. The idea might have bothered a jealous man; luckily Ivo was a stranger to that emotion.

‘I see.’

Ivo tipped his head in acknowledgement and began to step back inside the room, but it appeared that the relief of being relieved of some of the burden he’d been shouldering had made the normally taciturn Ramon uncharacteristically talkative and emotional.

‘That must be hard for you.’

It didn’t seem to require an answer so Ivo said nothing.

‘Keeping secrets from the person you love, not being able to share the burden, your grief. I had someone once, but no longer... I envy you.’ Ramon gave another precise little nod, slightly embarrassed-looking this time, and walked away.

Ivo watched him go. If he’d felt the need to reach out to Flora...a woman, any woman, he would have crushed it instantly. He had no desire to be part of a relationship where two people blurred into one. The mere idea was anathema to him. He realised this romantic ideal of a joining of souls was what many dreamt of, but to him it represented a loss of control, of sanity, of the essence of his individuality.

The only merging he wanted was of bodies.

When he walked back inside his face was carefully blank, denying there was any struggle going on inside him.

* * *

Ivo was tense about the breakfast; the conversation with Ramon had made him realise that his grandfather was a lot more unpredictable than he’d realised.

It sounded as though his behaviour was such that, had he not been who he was, rich, powerful and pretty much a law unto himself, had he not surrounded himself, with a few exceptions, with people who would have agreed if he’d called day night, people might already be asking questions.

Or if you, his only family, had been around a bit more.

Ivo took the hit of guilt, pretty sure he deserved it.

He need not have worried; the breakfast couldn’t have gone better. Nobody meeting Salvatore for the first time would have known there was anything wrong. If he misspoke a few times...well, people did.

He was charming, funny and full of praise for Flora and the job she was doing. And he was emotional when he got to hold his great-grandson, who he decided looked exactly like his father, at which point he became tearful.

His tears evoked a sympathetic response in Flora, who didn’t know that Salvatore never usually cried.

Ivo, worried about the mood shift, found himself moving protectively to Flora’s side as she lifted the baby off his grandfather’s lap, whereupon Jamie began to cry.

Ivo could have kissed the baby for his excellent timing. Salvatore did and then began to weep again.

‘He’s lovely,’ Flora said, sending up a reproachful look to the man walking beside her. ‘I can’t believe how nervous I was, and he looks quite well...?’ She hesitated a little before adding huskily, ‘He’s not in pain, is he?’

Ivo shook his head. Then, seeing the look of concern on her face as she pressed her fingers to the back of the baby’s neck, he asked sharply, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Does he look flushed to you?’

Ivo didn’t say anything. Jamie clearly did to her.

She touched his neck again. ‘He feels hot to me,’ she fretted.

Ivo could hear the panic in her voice. ‘He looks fine to me.’

She shrugged off the hand he’d placed on her shoulder and shook her head, missing his reaction to the rejection.

‘You’re worried?’

She shrugged her slender shoulders and lifted her troubled eyes to the figure standing with his back to one of the windows against the distant background of the blue sea.

He looked so big, so solid and so calm that she felt a little of her panic subside.

‘Sorry, you must think I’m crazy.’ She loosed a self-mocking laugh. ‘I used to wonder how I’d cope if Jamie was ill and I was alone, now I know I’d panic.’